I located a 100 gal propane tank and an old air compressor tank. The propane tank lays horizontal and we put the air compressor undereath it with a 4" wide connector spacing. we also installed a plate over the hole to deflect heat outward instead of straight up into the smoke tank. It works well and the thick propane tank holds heat fr a long time. How do you put pictures on here. I can attach a photo if you would like to see it.

You'll have to go to another picture-uploading website to get an image code to do so....I have photobucket....but there are other websites that others use too. Hope this helps. Here is the FAQ about this topic:
http://www.barbecuebible.com/board/faq.php#24

Here's where we left off that first night. Cut some scrap angle iron to make brackets and welded them in place.
I've got a set at the top because I want to be able to use my Weber Kettle lid for extra capacity.

That was as far as we got that night. Since then, snow and scheduling snags stopped further progress... until tonight!

Popped in a 1â€

Last edited by d_holck on Thu Feb 17, 2011 11:25 pm, edited 2 times in total.

So I got it finished a couple weeks ago. Did an initial burn with a couple pounds of bacon ends and hunks I found at the market. Then about 25# of pork shoulder over the weekend. I'm getting a little more than an hour of burn time at 240-250 per pound of charcoal. I couldn't be happier with this.

Long time since I posted here, but thought this would be a good idea for others building a UDS. I was walking thru Academy the other day and saw this

It was only $10, and from what I recalled I easily spent twice that on expanded metal and the rest needed to make my charcoal basket. Suffice it to say it worked extremely well, the only thing I think could improve it would be to make the holes bigger at the bottom for ash fall out. I set it up for a test burn yesterday about 3/4 full of briquettes and a few small chunks of hickory and let it roll. Woke up this morning to it running @ 190 degrees and still had a little less than say 1/3 the charcoal, that was 12 1/2 hours later. I opened up the pit and shook off the ash to let it breathe a little then put it back in and it ran for another 5 hours before I gave up on the run.

I'm going to resurrect this dormant thread with a non-UDS post (not that I don't love UDSs, but old school barrel grills can always use some love).

I've been making a number of straight up horizontal barrel grills over the last 20 years and feel like I'm just starting to get them just where I'd like them to be.

The main concept I'm currently using is just a barrel with 1/4 of the side cut open to make the door, and then using a Vogelzang door at one end to allow access to the fire without losing all the heat:

I cut the door into the side of the barrel, bend and attach some 1" flat steel to make a better seal on the sides of the main door, throw the Vogelzang door on the front of it, and make a charcoal grate out of expanded metal and angle iron to hold the fire:

I also add a pipe at the exhaust end to keep the exhaust at grill level, thereby keeping the heat and smoke inside of it while the food is cooking:

This is not an ideal rig for smoking, but you can certainly use it for smoking. You can smoke on the left half of it for extended cooks (as long as you're willing to stand by it and feed the fire every 30 minutes or so - beer in hand of course), but a UDS, WSM, or an offset will be a better bet for long smokes. That said, it is really versatile for everyday use.

It works incredibly well for roasting and grilling. You can build a large fire that covers 1/4 of it, and then have a wide variety of temperature zones to choose from. I usually get 1/4 of it screaming hot to sear food when I first put it on, and then move the food off the direct fire to roast at 300-400 degrees as needed.

I've been tweaking this one for a couple years now, adding things like a griddle and building a new stand. My latest addition is a 1/2" steel bar grill that I welded together. It does a great job of searing anything it touches!